It is well known to provide a motor vehicle with many electric circuits to connect electrical or electronic devices associated with the motor vehicle to a source of electrical power located on the motor vehicle. It is further known to provide such circuits by means of a wiring loom comprising a number of separately insulated conductors bundled together to form a rope like structure. A wiring loom is also commonly referred to as a wire harness or a cable harness.
Such wiring looms are expensive to manufacture and difficult to install on the vehicle. Furthermore, due to their increased size and complexity, required to interconnect the many electronic modules commonly used in a modern motor vehicle, they have become increasingly difficult to package on the motor vehicle.
It is a further problem with current practice that the connection and/or assembly of the various electrical components and electronic modules to the motor vehicle is time consuming and expensive.
For example and without limitation, U.S. Pat. No. 6,364,670 discloses a fuse box for supporting a number of fuses and/or relays. The fuse box is of a complex construction and requires not only the assembly of various components to form the fuse box but also the subsequent mounting of the fuse box onto the motor vehicle. The production of such a fuse box is therefore relatively expensive and time consuming.
It is an object of the invention to provide an apparatus for overcoming the aforesaid problems that is of economical construction and reduces assembly time.